New Microsoft 365 Features Announced at Inspire 2020
- Paul Thurrott
- Jul 21, 2020
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Like other industry events, Microsoft Inspire is going virtual this year, and some new Teams features are among the many announcements. But it’s not just Teams, of course. Microsoft has some other relevant announcements related to Microsoft 365 as well.
Some of these announcements include:
Microsoft Lists in Microsoft Teams. Microsoft will begin rolling out Lists to its Microsoft 365 customers this month, and it will be integrated into Microsoft Teams in August. A Lists app for iOS is also expected later this year, Microsoft says.
Universal Print. Described as a simple print experience for commercial and educational customers moving to the cloud, Universal Print is a Microsoft software as a service (SaaS) solution that “enables an intuitive, rich and secure print experience for users and helps IT reduce time and effort.” This service was announced this past spring and is now available in public preview.
Yammer improvements. Microsoft has redesigned Yammer on web and mobile using the Fluent Design System. Other previously unannounced capabilities include featured conversations to drive visibility and engagement, support for external guests in communities, and more. This update is now generally available.
Microsoft Teams Rooms. Microsoft Teams is gaining new hybrid meeting experiences with improved device management capabilities via Standard and Premium Microsoft Teams Rooms offerings.
Power BI app for Microsoft Teams. This new app gives people a single place for data visualizations and a way to find more data from across their organization. “The app provides a more streamlined experience for accessing Power BI reports in Teams and provides sample reports, training information and streamlined sharing functionality to help users incorporate data-driven decision-making into their work,” Microsoft notes. It will be available in Teams in August.
Power Apps and Power Virtual Agents chatbot improvements. Creators can now make, manage and use their apps and bots directly in Microsoft Teams through new Teams native app experiences. The new features are powered by Microsoft DataFlex in Teams and provide enterprise relational datastores with rich data types to Microsoft 365 users, Microsoft notes. They are now included for free with select Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses that include Power Apps and Power Automate. New Power Apps features will be available in early August in public preview. Power Virtual Agents features will be available in late August in public preview.
More Teams features. Teams is also getting a new interactive Yammer app on mobile called Communities that lets employees participate in their Yammer communities, receive organizational announcements and critical updates, engage in company-wide discussions and join live events alongside their shifts, tasks and project work. Microsoft Teams Walkie Talkie is also now in public preview. A new Teams feature in the Shifts scheduling module will soon make it easier for managers to create team schedules while alerting them to potential schedule conflicts. And Firstline Worker and Manager policy packages are now generally available, allowing IT pros to streamline policy assignment with pre-defined settings tailored for their entire Firstline Workforce.